"Sergiev Posad."

"And the children?" she asked continuing her interrogation.

"Petya's from Zvenigorod, Anton's from Moscow, Galya's from Kolomna…"

"Are they registered?" Svetlana asked. She clearly wanted to hear the answer "No," and that would have sealed Igor's fate.

The little boys pulled up their shirts without speaking. The little girl hesitated for a moment, but then unfastened her top button.

They all had seals.

"That won't do you much good," Svetlana muttered. "Go into the shed and wait for the field operatives. You can explain to a tribunal why you took the cubs hunting humans."

But Igor shook his head again, with an expression of genuine concern-and not for himself. That was the most surprising thing.

"Wait! Please! This is important. You have a daughter, don't you? A little Other girl, A Light One, two or three years old?"

"We saw where they took her," the little boy with my name said in a quiet voice.

I moved Sveta aside and stepped forward.

"What do you want?" I asked.

We understood what the werewolves wanted. And the werewolves knew that we understood. The sad thing about it was they could tell we'd be willing to deal.

But there are always little details worth talking through.

"A charge of minor negligence," Igor said quickly. "While we were out walking we inadvertently allowed ourselves to be seen by human children and frightened them."

"You were hunting, you beast!" Svetlana burst out. "You and the cubs were hunting human children."

"No," said Igor, shaking his head. "The kids got a bit frolicsome and decided to play a game with the human children. I arrived on the scene and pulled them off. It was my fault, I wasn't watching closely enough."

His calculations were precisely right. I couldn't have closed my eyes to what had happened, even if I wanted to. The facts had already gotten out. It was just a matter of how to classify the incident. Attempted murder almost certainly meant dematerialization for Igor and extremely close supervision for the cubs. Minor negligence meant no more than a report, a fine, and "special supervision" of his subsequent behavior.

"All right," I said hastily, so that Svetlana couldn't get in before me. "If you help us, you can have your 'minor negligence.'"

I wanted to be responsible for saying it.

Igor relaxed. He'd probably been expecting the deal to take longer.

"Galya, tell them," he ordered. He explained: "She saw it… Galka's a fidget, she just can't sit still in one place…"

Svetlana walked up to the little girl and I gestured for Igor to move aside. He tensed up again, but followed me obediently.

"A few questions," I explained. "And I advise you to answer honestly."

Igor nodded.

"How were you granted the right to initiate three children who aren't yours?" I asked, swallowing the words "you bastard" that were begging to tag themselves onto the end of my question.

"They were all incurably ill," Igor answered. "I was studying in medical college, on practical training in a children's cancer ward… all three of them were dying from leukemia. There was a doctor there who was an Other. A Light One. He suggested it to me… I bite all three of them and turn them into werewolves, and they recover. And by way of return he receives the right to heal a few other children."

I said nothing. I remembered the incident from about a year earlier. An absolutely outrageous case of open collusion between a Dark One and a Light One, which both Watches had preferred to hush up. The Light One had saved about twenty children, knocking himself out to exploit such a rare opportunity to heal them, but he had saved them. The Dark Ones had received three werewolves. A small exchange. Everyone was happy, including the children and their parents. A few additional amendments to the Treaty had been adopted to avoid similar cases in the future. They had preferred to forget the precedent as quickly as possible…

"Do you blame me?" Igor asked.

"It's not for me to blame you," I whispered. "All right. Whatever your motives might have been… never mind that. The second question. Why did you take them out hunting? Don't lie this time, don't lie! You were hunting. You were planning to violate the Treaty."

"I got carried away," Igor answered calmly. "What point is there in lying? I took the cubs out for a walk, and deliberately chose the most remote area. Then suddenly there were those little children… Alive. They smelled good. One thing just led to another. And as for the cubs… they only caught their first rabbit this year, got their first taste of blood."

And then he smiled-a guilty, embarrassed, even sincere smile. He explained: "Your mind works quite differently in the animal body. Next time I'll be more careful."

"All right," I said.

What else could I say? Right then Nadiushka's life was hanging by a thread. Even if he was lying, I wasn't going to start prying.

"Anton!" Svetlana called to me. "Catch!"

I looked at her-and the images came crowding into my mind.

… A beautiful woman in a long, old-woman's dress with a bright-colored Pavlovsk shawl..

… Walking beside her, a little girl… falling behind… the woman picks her up in her arms…

… Along the riverbank…

… Grass… tall grass… why is it so tall-above my head…

… I jump over a stream-with all four paws, put my nose to the ground, pick up the trail with my lower instincts…

… A stunted patch of trees, merging into a hummocky field… trenches, ditches…

… A smell… what a strange smell this land gives off… it's thrilling… and it makes me want to squeeze my tail between my legs…

… The woman with the little girl in her arms goes down into a deep trench…

… Back… back… it's the same witch, the same one, that's her scent…

"What is it?" Svetlana asked. "If it's not far away, why didn't I find them?"

"A battlefield," I whispered, shaking the images of what the little wolf-girl had seen out of my head. "The front line ran just past here, Sveta. The earth there is soaked in blood. You have to look for something specific to find anything at all. It's like trying to probe the Kremlin with magic."

Igor came up, cleared his throat politely and asked, "Is everything all right then? Maybe we could wait for the investigators at the camp? Or we don't need to rush things, our session there ends in a week, and I can report to the Night Watch to explain everything…"

I was thinking. Trying to correlate what I'd seen with the map of the area that I'd summoned up in my memory. Twelve miles… uh huh, the witch hadn't simply walked there with Nadiushka. She'd shortened the journey-witches can do that. We wouldn't catch up to her in a car-mine wasn't a Jeep, after all, and there wasn't a single Niva or UAZ four-wheel drive in the whole village. What you really needed for those roads was a tractor…

But I could enter the Twilight.

Or even better, make myself faster.

"Sveta," I said and looked in her eyes. "You've got to stay here."

"What?" She was startled to hear that.

"The witch is no fool. She won't give us three hours to think. She'll get in touch sooner than that. With you-she's not expecting anything remarkable from me. You stay here, and when the witch contacts you, talk to her here. Tell her I've gone to prepare the corridor through the encirclement… Lie, tell her anything. And then I'll summon you and distract her."

"You won't manage it," said Svetlana. "Anton, you're not strong enough to take her. And I don't know how quickly I'll be able to open a portal. I'm not even sure I will be able to. I've never tried, only read about it. Anton!"

"I won't be alone," I replied. "Right, Igor?"

He turned pale and started shaking his head.

"Hey, watchman… That's not what we agreed."

"We agreed that you would help," I reminded him. "We didn't define what counts as help. Well?"